2/10/2017. Monday. Charlottestown
A more leisurely start this morning as we began the day with a Prince Edward Island local tour guide, who was very knowledgeable, funny, and posed the question 'what is a crocheted cow'. Throughout the day, she offered tiny clues, and people put forth answers. More about that later. She took us to PEI National Park beaches and rusty/red coloured cliffs, which are eroding 1'/30cm per year off the coastline. It was only 11 degrees today with a very strong wind, but the sand didn't blow up like it does at...

1/10/2017. Sunday. Charlottestown, PE Island
Again, our early start paid off, as we were the first bus at Hopewell Rocks, which have a rise and fall of 16 metres, the highest and wildest tides in the world. We heard an excellent talk before going to the rocks, were the tide was on its way out, which meant that people could walk down the 100 steps and stand on the ocean floor. I had thought I'd like to do that just to say I'd done it, but then thought that we do it every time we go swimming in the ocean, and that my knees probably wouldn't...

On to Prince Edward Island, the smallest of our provinces. As a matter of fact, one person I spoke with said they shouldn't even be a province. The total population is 140,000 and it only has an area of 5,600 sq kms.(2162 sq. miles) That being said, we loved PEI. It is slow-paced, laid-back and very uncrowded. The perfect weather we had when we were there may have influenced our experience. We got there by crossing the Confederation Bridge - an engineering masterpiece. It is 13 Kms long over the Northumberland Strait. It was built in...

Day Three.
In the morning, as we pulled out, our GPS had us head a new way out of the park... but after coming to the end of a 7km road and finding a locked gate, we did a 3 point turn backtracking our way through the park. The GPS actually admitted it was confused, gave us an error message and then she just stared at us. Once we were back on the right path and rebooting the GPS box, we were on the way.
Not long after we got going the right direction and track, we once again made a wrong turn but ended up in the grocery lot parking lot......

Today’s route across the top of the island to East Point took me through Green Gables country. Lucy Maud Montgomery lived on Prince Edward Island & wrote her most famous novel, "Anne of Green Gables" in 1908. She followed that up with 19 other novels, all except one set on Prince Edward Island which she describes in great detail in her books.
Although Anne was a fictional character, the house & its surroundings weren’t & they are now part of a Parks Canada Heritage Place.
L M Mongomery’s mother died when she was 21 months old so she was...

I don’t believe it! Nearly every campsite I’ve stayed at in Canada comes complete with a picnic table & fire-ring so people expect to have a campfire. Yesterday when I arrived at West Point there was a notice saying that campfires were banned because it’s been so dry. My friendly neighbour told me they haven’t been allowed to have a fire for the last 3 weeks.
So, guess what? This morning it started to rain & it hasn’t let up all day. I’ve got a fantastic site here at Malpeque, right on the edge of the cliffs overlooking Hog Island & the...

I’m now on Prince Edward Island, Canada’s smallest province which is only 280 km from tip to tip with a population of just under 150,000.
I crossed the Northumberland Strait from New Brunswick via the amazing 13 km Confederation Bridge (yes, that’s right, thirteen). Opened in 1997, it’s considered one of Canada’s top engineering achievements of the 20th Century. It took 4 years to build, employed 5,000 workers & cost $1 billion. It’s a toll bridge but you only pay when you’re leaving the island.
I called in at the Canadian Potato Museum...

Because yesterday’s bike ride had been such a success we decided to try a different section of the trail today. After packing up the trailer (and putting all those handy wood blocks away!) we drove to Mount Stewart and got the bikes out of the truck bed. Donna was doing the flying hands dance as the mosquitoes, all of a sudden, were ferocious!!! As quickly as we could we loaded up and headed off down the trail. Unfortunately this section of the trail follows a slow moving (read swamp!) body of water so the mosquitoes were having a feast on...

Another gorgeous day with warm sun streaming in the trailer. As we have pretty much seen all the sights we wanted to see on the island we decided that a bike ride on the Confederation Trail was in order. Yesterday we spoke with Erin’s old roommates Mom (you followin’?) who lives close to where we were camping and arranged to go for a spot of tea. We had never met the lady before but Grace, Erin’s old roommate, is such a character that we wanted to see her roots. Lucky for us the section of the Confederation Trail that runs from St. Peter’s...

Our first stop of the day was at Basin Head Provincial Park and The Singing Sands Beach. It was overcast and cooler so we were sharing the beach with one family of three and a couple of young folks wandering along. At the lifeguard station the staff of 5 young people were huddled inside, passing the time laughing and chatting. They didn’t mind at all when Donna intruded on their space, asking about the Singing Sands – “what’s the deal?” Apparently there is silicone in the sand of this beach (and this beach alone) that, when walked on in a...

Aug6
A rare rainy day on this holiday but we do our “dolly domestics” as Grandpa T calls them and spend a quiet day reading and blogging. Tomorrow we head to the north east coast to do our final section of PEI coastline.
Aug7
A little hiccup this morning as we are loading the trailer onto the hitch we notice that the equalizer bar retaining pin is gone. This pin has been a little wonky but we really can’t use bars without it – oh, oh. So we spend an hour at least zipping around to a couple of places looking for a replacement or...

At noon, 6 days a week, The Young Company, a troupe of about 14 young people, put on an outdoor performance of about 45 minute duration at the Conference Centre in downtown Charlottetown. Submissions from youth aged 16 to 26 were accepted, culled and a team of dancers, song-writers and singers were selected early in the year. The focus this year was on Canada 150 and these musicians & artists travelled around the country talking to young Canadians about their dreams for themselves, for their country and for humanity. They then created an...